


If You'd Escaped What I've Escaped

by clio_jlh



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Character of Color, Chromatic Character, Coffee Shops, F/M, Female Characters, First Time, Humor, Paris (City), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clio_jlh/pseuds/clio_jlh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cobb told them to lie low for a while, but that isn't the only reason Ariadne is the last person Yusuf expects to see walking into the Redondo Beach Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You'd Escaped What I've Escaped

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Versicolor Week Challenge @ tumblr](http://versicolorweek.tumblr.com/post/20142108116/lovethyfather-what-is-versicolor-week-a-lot) and posted there a couple of weeks ago in a slightly less cleaned-up version. Title from "Paris" by Kanye West and Jay-Z, specifically: "If you'd escaped what I've escaped / You'd be in Paris getting fucked up too."

Once the plane landed, they all went to ground. Yusuf had some cash hidden under an alias, so he spent most of his time at the beach.

And he was surprised, to say the least, to see Ariadne walking toward him at the local Coffee Bean. "I thought we weren't supposed—"

"Please," Ariadne said, waving a hand as she sat down. "Arthur and Eames have been shacked up in a bungalow in Santa Monica since we landed."

"Ah," Yusuf said, because he was fairly sure what that meant.

"Anyway I wanted to ask you what you thought you'd be doing, after this."

"I hadn't given it much thought," he replied, which was a lie; he'd been thinking quite a lot about how this little adventure may have ruined him for his old life of surreptitious experiments and retail dreaming. "What about you?"

"Going back to Paris to complete my degree," she answered. "I like to finish what I start. Then after that—I think Cobb's out, at least for now, but Arthur and Eames are thinking of starting up their own crew."

"And you're asking me to be a part of that?"

"Yes, but more importantly, will you have dinner with me tonight so we can discuss your coming to Paris?"

"Me?" Yusuf asked, because of course he felt something for Ariadne, but he'd also thought Cobb or Arthur would be ahead of him so he hadn't done much about it.

"Yes, you," she said, as if she were talking to an idiot, and perhaps she was. "And like I said, I like to finish what I start." She leaned in and kissed him.

He tried to act a bit cooler than he felt. "Paris might do," he said, and kissed her again.


End file.
